LAS VEGAS - When for-hire guardian Patience Bristol was handcuffed and led out of court last Wednesday morning, it may have been one of the luckiest days of her life! Instead of spending dozens of years in prison, a deal was cut so she can get out in three years or less.
Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez had her hands tied by a plea bargain cut by Bristol's attorney Warran Geller with DA Steve Wolfson who dropped twenty of twenty-one felony charges requested by Las Vegas Metro Police. At the end, Judge Gonzalez gave Bristol the harshest sentence she could - three to eight years in the Nevada Women's Correctional Center in North Las Vegas - based on the one remaining category B felony count of Exploitation of Older or Vulnerable Person that Wolfson allowed in his stipulated sentence. Courts are usually bound by valid stipulations and are required to enforce them.
However, Patience Bristol did not exploit just one older or vulnerable person. She ripped off dozens during the ten years she was employed by Jared Shafer, the owner of Professional Fiduciaries of Southern Nevada, Inc. (PFSN), the company given full power of attorney by certain Clark County Family Court judges to control the persons and property of well-to-do wards of the court who have no relatives living in Nevada to provide them care and manage their assets.
Jared Shafer has not yet been charged with a crime.
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Steve Miller, is a former Las Vegas City Councilman. In 1991, the readers of the Las Vegas Review Journal voted him the “Most Effective Public Official” in Southern Nevada. Miller writes internationally syndicated columns on organized crime and political corruption for Rick Porrello’s AmericanMafia.com.
